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Jihye Lee Orchestra: Daring Mind
by Mike Jurkovic
Listening to bandleader/composer Jihye Lee and her mic-drop orchestra is like watching your life flash before your eyes. You see it all: All the richness of spirit one can attain. All the sadness one can espouse. All the waltzing mischief to which one can aspire. Testing malleability at every turn, Lee's on to an eclectic something that doesn't pass through the torpor too often: A lucid, active imagination. Thus Daring Mind, Lee's Motema Music debut, co-produced by Darcy ...
Continue ReadingSchapiro 17: New Shoes: Kind of Blue at 60
by Jerome Wilson
Miles Davis' album Kind Of Blue (Columbia, 1959) is the best-selling jazz album of all time and has been highly influential for the last 60 years. Most of its five tracks have become jazz standards and have been interpreted time and again. However it is rare to see the entire album reworked to the extent that Jon Schapiro and his big band, Schapiro 17, do here. The tracks undergo extensive retooling, expanding into big band arrangements that carry on the ...
Continue ReadingSchapiro 17: New Shoes: Kind of Blue at 60
by Jack Bowers
2019 marked the sixtieth anniversary of the Miles Davis sextet's acclaimed album, Kind of Blue (Columbia). While the tributes didn't exactly pour in, New York-based composer / arranger Jon Schapiro took it upon himself not only to revisit that classic session but to re-orchestrate it for a large ensemble (the Schapiro 17) and flesh it out with half a dozen compositions of his own and another by pianist Roberta Piket. In keeping with the spirit of the occasion, all of ...
Continue ReadingSebastian Noelle: Shelter
by Budd Kopman
Guitarist Sebastian Noelle is a very busy player, but just does not make many records, which seem to come about every five years: Across The River (2006), Koan (2011) and now the marvelous Shelter. Assembling a first rate band consisting of Marc Mommaas on tenor saxophone (heard most recently on Ballads And Standards), pianist Matt Mitchell (worked with Tim Berne, John Hollenbeck Rudresh Mahanthappa), bassist Matt Clohesy (heard most recently on Gabriel Vicens's Point In Time) and drummer ...
Continue ReadingSebastian Noelle: Across The River
by Budd Kopman
Sebastian Noelle could easily be called an anti-guitarist. The way he approaches the instrument when he solos, combined with the nature of the music he composes, continuously thwarts expectations. He does this not in the manner of Derek Bailey, who almost destroyed the guitar as a reference point. But within the realm of jazz musicians who recognizably play guitar, Noelle's style encompasses virtually none of the standard (expected) things, either physical or musical. Over the course of the record, when ...
Continue ReadingSebastian Noelle: Across the River
by Brian P. Lonergan
Warm, relaxed yet energetic original compositions dominate guitarist Sebastian Noelle's inviting album Across the River. Much of that warmth and relaxation comes from Noelle's fuzzy, rich harmonies and melodies that ring out with slight reverb and distortion. Much of the energy comes from some of the most exciting players on the New York scene today: Ari Hoenig (drums) and Ben Street (bass), with Donny McCaslin (tenor, soprano) and Javier Vercher (tenor) splitting saxophone duties. A slow, measured ...
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